I recently had the pleasure of meeting a friend for coffee. We got to chatting about the last time we had actually seen each other and realized it had been almost three months. Now we are the type of friends, you know the kind, that can easily just pick right back up where we left off as though no time had gone by at all. However, we had been in such a good groove about not letting the days pass that we were both equally shocked that summer was almost over and we hadn't spent any of it together. We both started our laundry list of things we had been doing, work, chores, life in general. It was after I had gone through some of my three months that she said something that made me take pause.

"Wow, Sarah. I never thought I would see the day that you let mundane life fill up so much of your time."

The sad thing was, she was right! And it hadn't just been for 3 months. When we really sat back and talked, I discovered that I had let "mundane" life bog me up for over 18 months.

Now to be fair, huge changes had been going on in my life from day one of 2014- until summer 2015 (and if I'm being honest, will continue for another six months). Changes that required me to buckle down. Looking back now I realize how quickly having too much stress can pull you into the mundane (you know: the unexciting, unadventurous, overly routine). I went from a girl that would close her eyes and point to a place on a map and would head of there with her Husband on the weekend, to someone that had every second of the day packed with things I needed to do. Emails I needed to check. People I needed to connect with.

Packing your schedule is addicting, not quite chocolate cake addicting... but then what is? The more you do it, the more you feel weird when you have a free minute to yourself. You begin to make up things to do or adding things to do when you genuinely don't have anything. How many times have you said yes to going to a party you normally wouldn't just to say you went out (okay, this can be a fun way to make friends, but not if you do it for the wrong reasons)?

I took a long walk after our conversation and thought about all the things I had coming up. I took time to decide if I really needed to do most of them, and picked which ones were things I had packed into my life for no reason at all. You should do this some day if you haven't, it is amazing the things you add to your list that you don't need to.

I thought about all the things I loved to do, the things that made me feel more like me, that I had been neglecting because my time had been so limited. I vowed from that moment forward that for the rest of the year (and hopefully forever) I would get back to being more myself and less cluttered.

Now, to transition from being overly busy back to living life the way you want to live, you kind of have to keep one bad habit you already have.... you have to book up your time.

I know, I know. I just told you to stop scheduling things. Just to start, though, you have to make sure you block out time to do the things you love. Eventually it will become second nature again, but until then, you have to make the time for yourself. I mean why not? You put things you don't like on your schedule, why not put yourself on it too?

Start small. Why not block off time before bed to read? I hear this a lot "I don't read anymore because I'm so busy." Yet people find time to watch another episode on Netflix of a show they weren't really interested in, or lets be honest... will spend an hour trying to find something to watch on Netflix. Instead tell yourself to go to bed an hour before you normally would and read.

Block off an hour at sunset to go for a walk. Find that connection with nature. Have a family? Great, take them with you. It can be the after dinner activity. The importance of this is to have time with yourself, and the people that really matter, doing something that isn't just a throw away.

It can be whatever works for you, but I challenge you readers to take some time this summer for YOU.

Drive to a new town and try breakfast. Finish the sweater you've been knitting.... whatever makes you happy.

Most importantly, as summer is moving into its last half, take stalk of what is important to you. Stop to enjoy things once in a while, and avoid getting in a rut.